Arthur smiled sadly.
“He sounds like a father.”
“He was.”
Nora drew the photograph of Evelyn closer.
“What was she like?”
The question seemed to take Arthur somewhere he had not expected to enter in public.
“She drew things,” he said. “Everything. Receipts, napkins, envelopes. If you left a piece of paper near her, it came back with a bird on it.”
Nora looked at Maisie.
Her daughter's history worksheet lay half visible in the open backpack. In the margin, beside a paragraph about the Erie Canal, Maisie had drawn a small bird standing on the head of a serious-looking man.
Arthur followed the glance.
For one moment, the room held something almost tender.
Then Nora stood too quickly.
She caught the back of the chair.
Maisie rose at once.
“Mom?”
“I'm fine.”
“Don't.”
The word came out sharp enough to surprise them both.
Nora looked at her daughter.
“Please don't say that when you aren't.”
June moved a chair behind Nora before she could argue. Arthur stepped aside rather than crowding her. Nora sat, one hand pressed against her upper chest, breathing through her nose with a concentration that made Maisie's face go blank.
June asked whether she needed emergency help.
Nora hesitated.
Arthur said quietly, “You don't have to prove anything to anyone here.”
That was what broke her resistance.
“I was supposed to go back to the clinic this week,” she said. “I missed the appointment.”
“Why?” Maisie asked.
Nora looked at her.
“The bus fare,” Maisie said, understanding before she wanted to.
Nora did not deny it.
June reached for the room's phone and asked Nora for the clinic number. She spoke to the nurse, handed Nora the receiver, and waited while Nora answered questions without softening the truth for once. The nurse wanted her assessed that afternoon. If the symptoms worsened before then, she should not wait.
Arthur took out his car keys.
“I can drive you.”
Nora looked at him, then at Maisie.
June said, “I'll come too.”
After a moment, Nora nodded.
The bicycle would not fit in Arthur's sedan. Felicia offered to keep it in the locked library courtyard until somebody could collect it. Maisie looked at the sign, still hanging from the handlebars.
Arthur stood a few feet away, waiting.
She took the sign off.
For now, she told herself.
Not forever. She could still decide later.
The clinic sent Nora to the hospital for further assessment, and the afternoon became a sequence of doors, chairs, and people asking the same questions. Maisie sat beside June with her mother's bag in her lap. Arthur bought bottled water from a machine and stood for nearly ten minutes deciding whether sitting beside them would be welcome.
June finally pointed at the empty chair.
“You can sit down, Arthur. The floor hasn't accused you of anything.”
He sat.
Maisie watched the doors through which Nora had gone.
“She gets tired,” she said.
June nodded.
“Sometimes she sleeps after I leave for school. She thinks I don't know because the blanket is folded when I get home.”
Arthur looked at the bag in Maisie's lap. A loose button hung from the side pocket. Nora had probably meant to fix it and run out of energy before getting to it.
“She's been trying very hard,” June said.
“I know that.”
“I didn't mean you didn't.”
Maisie pressed her lips together.
After a while, she said, “I don't want people to think she's bad at being my mom.”
Arthur turned toward her.
“Being ill doesn't make her bad at it.”
“Being poor does to some people.”
June's face changed.
“Yes,” she said softly. “To some people.”
Maisie was grateful she did not pretend otherwise.
A nurse came out and asked whether they were Nora Parker's family. Maisie stood before anyone could answer.
“I'm her daughter.”
The nurse smiled gently.
“She asked for you. Just a short visit while we finish a few things.”
Nora lay against pillows in a room with a curtain instead of a door. Her shoes stood beneath the bed, one still untied. She looked smaller without her cardigan.
Maisie went to the side of the bed.
“Are you staying?”
“For tonight, probably.”
“Are you really sick?”
Nora looked at the nurse, then back at Maisie.
“I should have come sooner. They're going to help me get stronger.”
“That isn't what I asked.”